How to tweak the installation initrd

[gapan]

Get the initrd.img file from slackware. Unpack it with:

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rm -rf /boot/initrd-tree
mkdir /boot/initrd-tree
cd /boot/initrd-tree
gzip -dc < /path/to/initrd.img | cpio -i

Edit (as root) the initrd to your liking. Repack it with:

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mkinitrd -o /path/to/new/initrd.img

and create a new iso by making the iso structure in a dir, cd into it and:

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mkisofs -o /path/to/new.iso -R -J -V "Volume ID" -hide-rr-moved -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -sort isolinux/iso.sort -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/isolinux.boot -p "Preparer ID" -publisher "Publisher ID" -A "Application ID" .

(the "." in the end is necessary)

I'm going to tweak the absolute linux initrd with that, it's very close to what I have in mind, certainly sipler that the slackware initrd. Anyone can give it a try though. The files to tweak are basically usr/lib/setup/setup and usr/lib/setup/slackinstall I think.

[JRD]

Thank you for the howto. I figure only recently how to do things like that, so that could be very good for others.

[gapan]

For the last part (iso creation), it seems easier to me to just use isomaster and replace any files from a previous iso than having to create the iso structure in a directory first and run makeisofs on it.